“Music is one of the events we are presenting in KEN. We aim to position regional and ethnic music as a tourism attraction in Indonesia,” Puspa said during a discussion at the 2025 Indonesian Music Conference (KMI) here on Friday.
KEN is a flagship program by the Ministry of Tourism designed to boost visitor numbers across Indonesia through culture-based events, including music performances.
This year, KEN features 110 curated events across 38 regions, highlighting local wisdom as the main attraction.
According to her, the 2023 KEN program attracted over 8.4 million visitors, a 13.5 percent increase compared to the previous year.
It also involved 29 thousand MSMEs, 74 thousand event workers, and over 172 thousand artists, generating Rp13.5 trillion in economic turnover and contributing Rp238.2 billion to GDP.
Considering the impact, Puspa underscored that cultural and music events under KEN have the potential to become a main strategy for promoting Indonesian tourism destinations.
She also urged the Indonesian hotel association to play traditional Indonesian music in hotel spaces as a way to introduce local culture and music to guests.
Furthermore, to attract tourists through music, the ministry encourages the development of music-themed tourism packages, similar to those offered in Ambon, Maluku.
“One notable success, as many of you may know, is Ambon. It has been designated by UNESCO as a City of Music since 2019,” she noted.
She also pushed for the holding of national and global-scale music festivals as a driver for culture- and community-based tourism packages.
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Translator: Sinta, Kenzu
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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